2021 was a great year for architecture awards for TAS Architects! Following on from winning two RIBA awards for Woodside Mews and Manor Ridge Barns, we have won two awards with the Hertfordshire Association of Architects (HAA).

In an online awards ceremony, the HAA team announced that our new build scheme Loxley Stables, located just outside Tring, won in both the Domestic New Build category and the Sustainability category for Hertfordshire architects. Loxley Stables comprises three highly sustainable new homes where we experimented with new materials and techniques, so we’re particularly thrilled to have come first in the Sustainability category. 

Here’s an extract from the awards’ submission, which led to our success:

“The development lies on the edge of the Hertfordshire village’s conservation area and acts as the gateway to the open fields beyond. By selecting a material palette that blends handmade brickwork with varied agricultural timber cladding, we were able to ensure the dwellings belong in their rural landscape while incorporating modern detailing.

“Working in close collaboration with our landscape architect, a flowing indigenous landscape was designed to incorporate SUDS for flood mitigation, as well as an ecological linear garden to enable wildlife to pass through unhindered. This includes great crested newt migration between the two ponds that the site bisects. Post monitoring GCN surveys shows increased levels if numbers thus demonstrating a successful ecological strategy that had included extensive construction phase planning. Incorporating owl habitats into the façade of the brickwork was also carried out, although whilst flying close by most evening, the beautiful barn owl is still choosing to live elsewhere!

“To further TAS Architects’ research efforts, one of the houses was built using passive housing strategies to act as a test bed for low-energy, off-site construction. Though each house is unique, featuring handcrafted details, collectively they epitomise a modern, sustainable community.”

Thank you so much to the team at the HAA. We’re absolutely delighted to have won two more architecture awards!